Script Hero – Mansoor Khan

SCRIPT HERO

Mansoor had a happy childhood. He liked tinkering with gadgets, ended up making a few of his own! All because of a buddy from school. The family owned a farm in Panvel. He used to enjoy planting vegetables there. And Building tunnels. And swimming pools. Most of us believe that Wealth and Brains don’t go hand in hand. So, it must have been a great surprise for the Khan family, which was in the film industry, when their son, Mansoor, cracked the JEE with a respectable rank of 816 – and joined the engineering program at IIT Bombay.

What makes his story appropriately filmy, was Mansoor’s decision to drop out of the engineering program 1.5 years into the course. IIT Bombay was not a pleasant experience for Mansoor. The course was too rigorous and too intense, leaving no time for himself. His father suggested that he could join him in making films but Mansoor had no interest in film-making at that point and was hell-bent on studying electronics. Mansoor applied, and was accepted, at the engineering program at Cornell. Life in the US was better. Mansoor started again from first year, and did well. Had a good friend circle. Took auxiliary credits in Anthropology, Philosophy, Astronomy and Music. He still believes that In any education, a component of liberal arts is a must.

After 4 terms at Cornell, he decided to up his ambition – and transferred to MIT, unarguably the world’s best engineering school. MIT turned out to be IIT deja vu, though the approach to education by the MIT profs and the flexibility in courses was better than what he saw at IIT. However MIT is a tech school, so the choice in courses was not as wide as he had at Cornell. Another disadvantage was that being a late admission, he had to stay off campus. Finishing his first term at MIT, he did not fancy spending a lifetime at companies like Texas Instruments. Young Mansoor decided that the sea was his real calling. He dropped out yet again – and spent the next two years of his life sailing around before returning home.

His parents were actually happy with his decision to drop out and return back to desh. They had always been telling him to get into films. Mansoor was smitten with angst: the white-turned-black sheep of the family, he was looking at redemption – he had to do something to prove himself. Started by writing a script. As it happens with a lot of first timers, this one was quite autobiographical. On his own struggles to find meaning in life. However, young Mansoor was not quite happy with the story and the script remained incomplete for the time being.

The family dining table was a good learning ground. About scripts and editing. Mansoor listened in to his dad’s discussions with scriptwriters. About how scenes were selected or rejected. About what makes a scene interesting. About what to do when a story is flagging. If nepotism were the only key to success, all second-generation filmmakers would have been successful. One day, his dad called him for a script reading. This was to be the launch film for Mansoor’s cousin. Mansoor listened to the first few scenes – and realised that it was a typical Romeo-Juliet story. Yet he decided to take on this project as a redemption challenge, telling himself that he would portray relationships in the film the way he had experienced them whilst growing up. Reminds me of the Inside Out that Simon Sinek talks so much about.

The study of science helps build logic. You understand numbers. You understand devices. What also helped in the project was Mansoor’s experience with Umatic video. Mansoor had started the first Indian company that was making films in Umatic video directly. In film, you can actually see frames, but video is just magnetic powder sprinkled on tape. There are no frames visible, hence difficult to edit. In the eighties, Umatic was launched. For the first time, you could edit video. In filmmaking, a knowledge of the camera and sound helps. It also helps in set design. Mansoor’s inclination was more towards sound. He gained the respect of sound technicians.

Mansoor wrapped up the film – and took off immediately for a sailing vacation. On his return, his dad took him to a theatre to watch the film. Mansoor in his heart is not a filmy guy; he had not watched a single Dilip Kumar movie till date. (Mansoor saw Dilip Kumar films later – was particularly impressed by Amar.) But what he saw in the theatre surprised him. Most of the film audience were there to watch the film – for the 10^th time! This cult film went on to establish the genre of the rom-com in Indian cinema – and also achieved superstardom for his cousin. We are talking about Aamir Khan’s first film – Qayamat se Qayamat Tak (or QSQT as it was known when we guys were in college.)

The unwritten script was still something that troubled Mansoor. QSQT’s experience helped him redo the script entirely. Mansoor wanted to explore a different dynamics of relationship and so did not want the cliched mother and father characters in the story.

Whereas the earlier script had a brother who was 10 years senior to the protagonist – and a sister who tried her best to manage the conflict between the two, the new script had a brother who was almost the same age as the protagonist and Mansoor introduced the character of a father as from the experience of his first film QSQT, he felt this worked stronger for the Indian audience. And what I liked best about the script – was that it was themed around sport – and a fairly unpopular one at that – cycling. The film again starred the young Aamir – the iconic Jo Jeeta wahi Sikandar.

Most people who want to get into writing think that all you need to do is put paper to pen, or fingers to keyboard. ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’ And no clue about what the next sentence is going to be. You have to start with a premise which is a single line or phrase that contains the core idea of the story. Then You need to have a rough idea of the plot. Further You need to have believable, interesting characters. In any story, you typically have the introduction, the body and the conclusion. But for films, you have to split up into four parts because there is an interval between body 1 and body 2. Every film should start with a premise. Of a single sentence. He recommends an interesting exercise for readers. Watch a movie and guess the premise. In Jo jeeta wohi Sikandar, the premise: a loser who learns to win. This premise is converted into a story and then into a screenplay. His advice to budding authors: be clear about what you want to say. It has to come from within. Put pen to paper. Start writing. Every day. Read a lot. As you grow older, life experiences can substitute some of the reading.

Moving from writing to direction. Direction is not just Action and Cut. Direction is really storytelling. Could be a real life story. Could be a fantasy. Good directors are great raconteurs. Story telling becomes more complex as you move from verbal narration to stage to film. In films, editing gives life to the film. But the essence remains story telling. A belief of the director in his premise is important. Preachiness happens when beliefs die. A director is like a cook, she needs to add the right masalas. In the right quantity. She needs to imagine the dish in order to plan the details. Mansoor took an example of his own dad, Nasir Husain. Nasir was a great storyteller in real life. Had a great sense of humour. A good sense of timing. One of Mansoor’s all time favourite films is his dad’s suspense drama Teesri Manzil. Creating suspense is easy. Holding suspense is a bigger challenge.

Another film that he counts amongst his favourites is Mahesh Bhatt’s Saaransh. A great psychological play with great emoting by its characters. Being more in the limelight, films are more controversial than books. These days you cannot have a film that is criticizing India – it’s against the current flavour of nationalism. We are getting to be a touchy country. This narrows down the scope of filmmaking. The silver lining is in web platforms. Being global in nature, web series are less subject to censorship. Mansoor agrees with Mahesh Bhatt that the best censorship comes from audiences, not the censor board.

By now, one has come to expect more twists in the Mansoor tale. Mansoor had always been a nature guy – and the city was not really the place for him. Mansoor’s inspirations in life are people like Masanobu Fukuoka and Medha Patkar. Mansoor feels that Fukuoka’s book, The One Straw Revolution should actually be a textbook in all schools. Most of us have external definitions of success. He is happier with internal ones. He definitely does not count people like Elon Musk as role models for the world. At the pinnacle of his success, the blue eyed boy of Bollywood quit the industry. After trying to stay some time near the sea, he eventually settled down in the hills of Conoor – where he still stays today.

So how has life been treating Mansoor in Conoor? He runs a great homestay there. Am planning to make a trip there as soon as Mansoor throws it open to guests. Interestingly, he also has hosted a lot of school kids at the farm. Vibhuti Bhushan had a question about the nomenclature of his farm. Mansoor wanted his farm to be partly cultivated and partly wild, hence the name Acres Wild. It also happens to be the name of a Jethro Tull song, a band which both Vibhuti and Mansoor are fans of. At Acres Wild Mansoor makes lovely artisanal cheese. The cheese operations were started to entice his wife to life in Coonoor. She did not fancy a life spent in clubs. And the family continues its nomadic life by taking out their camper and going on slow long rides across the country.

And yes, the writer inside him continues to flourish. He has written a great book about sustainable living. You can download it here. The book has a simple message: economic sustainability is an oxymoron. Economics is premised on growth. The lubricant of any economy is interest rates – which imply growth. Sustainability is premised on equilibriums and steady states. The usually agnostic Mansoor reflected on islam’s labelling of interest as haram. He agrees – interest is a social sin because it easy earning without the need to work.

Work is on for his next book. It is again a coming of age story, but instead of a person it is the coming of age of culture that Mansoor is focusing on. Most of us believe that all forms of ecological collapse including climate change are caused by man. Wrong. It’s caused by ONLY one culture of man. And this culture is just one of the 5,000 cultures of the world. The culture of civilization. This has destroyed our environment. Civilized humans are actually viral humans. Look at communities we label as backward – the adivasis, the indigenous and tribals all over the world. They have no trouble with their environment. They are the true humans.

You can watch the video of the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrkAB4Duu2c&t=239s